


Godforsaken in the New Eden

by Bai_Marionette



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Asexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 11:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7220101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bai_Marionette/pseuds/Bai_Marionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a humming in the restless summer air<br/>And we're slipping off the course that we prepared</p><p>/</p><p>Two lone survivors cross paths and find their lives so intertwined that being apart is beyond incomprehensible.<br/>It is a death sentence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Godforsaken in the New Eden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [violetlolitapop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetlolitapop/gifts).



At first, it hadn’t been a big deal.

It was the disease of people who shared used needles behind dumpsters, of drug-addled nightclub dancers who took an unknown designer drug from a stranger and didn’t think twice about it. The media never reported it. It was the disease of the people “whom had it coming.”

It was one sunny July afternoon in southern Arizona when everything changed. Everything happened so fast. News reporters had not even had a chance to make the scene before the whole situation had gotten out of hand. In the park. A little girl had gone to the sandbox where a lone homeless man had been assumedly drinking off his intoxication. A nearby parent had called out to her, standing up to get her before she could awake the sleeping drunkard but then reality was turned on its head.

Suddenly, too suddenly to even be real, the shaggy bearded man had been screaming.

The man was crawling from the sandbox, fingertips drawing lines in the dirt, before a savage growl was heard. Heads turned to see the once only pale-faced young girl turn into the stranger’s throat and shoulder with no remorse. Adults and children shrieked alike as the homeless man was devoured alive, children were rushed away, nearby officers were trying to snap back into focus and fire.

It took a total of ten rounds to bring down the young girl.

The homeless man’s throat was exposed, his own blood suffocating and choking him, dying in the reddened sand.

It was grotesque.

But it was barely the beginning.

That was a small town in Arizona.

It was merely only the exposition – a taste of the true horrors to come.

:::

The virus took the world by surprise, sinking its diseased fangs into every nook and cranny of civilization; where there was life and humans, the outbreak had not only taken control – it wreaked havoc without any form or show of mercy. Young or old, rich or poor, rural or urban or suburban: no one was safe.

Everyone was a potential victim. Whether from the infected, from a paranoid neighbor, or from the military marching through – burning down entire cities or building an entire wall to keep an infected region inside. No one was safe anymore. Everyone was terrified of being infected. It was a modern black plague, except there were no rats. Few animals were immune, the virus acted like rabies, poisoning the mind and driving the poor creatures to the brink of insanity before driving them to kill.

It was chaos.

It was madness.

And this was only the beginning.

:::

Alfred took shelter behind an abandoned truck, checking his last few rounds in his gun, taking in gulps of breath before daring to lean upwards on his bloody knees to peer through the blasted out windows. It was too dark to see. The streetlights in this district had long gone out during the peak years of mass infection. It had been almost five years since the initial collapse of the American civilization. Europe had fallen some time afterwards, the rest of the world crumbling in on itself once the last superpowers seemingly had been defeated by the virus’ horrific side effects.

The infected – or zombies, as the world also called them – had seemingly out populated the remaining survivors, but were only continuing to grow in numbers, like a swarm of cockroaches. Everyone was terrified. Some had been terrified enough to end it all before they had even been infected, not wanting to risk getting bitten in the long run. If there was silence, there was paranoia. If there was noise, there was even greater sense of paranoia combined with an all too great unveiling sense of dread.

For Alfred F. Jones, a survivor from Kansas that had gotten himself into trouble in trying to escape a horde of zombies in the urban districts of southern Georgia, it was almost too quiet. 

Suddenly, all much too suddenly – there was an ear deafening and terrifying shriek blasting over his eardrums.

Alfred was taken off guard, an infected zombie at his back, trying to claw at his back. _Shit_. He had turned to look through the window and had not even thought about to check the alley when he had taken cover. The shrieking beast was almost impossible to throw off, a death [ha] grip on the blonde’s shoulders and sickly breath raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He tried to keep his voice to a minimum, no need to draw more attention than what the creature was already doing.

 But panic made it hard to focus and remember to keep silent as the beast keep trying to bite Alfred. He could not even retrieve his gun in his position, not that the revolver probably had any remaining bullets in it, the poor man had not even gotten a chance to reload it since the bad turn in the mall. He struggled all the harder, ducking and barely missing those rotten teeth, hissing in a breath when broken teeth snagged on the straps of his backpack. He twisted his arm, thanking his genetics and any heavenly being listening that he had been born double jointed, throwing a piss poor punch at the infected zombie’s face.

The zombie caught the punch in its mouth, only the thick leather of Alfred’s gloves saving him from his poorly executed offense. He wrenched his fist back, taking a risk and exposing more of his neck before he head-butted the creature. That move earned him a good few seconds, enough to pull himself away, cursing on his breath as he heard the creature shriek once more. His knees protested moving so quickly, one of his ankles screaming in pain and probably twisted. He forwent his gun in favor of the machete that he had picked up some few weeks ago as the creature lunged at him.

A muffled shot rang out and the creature dropped.

Alfred barely heard the shout of “Go! Get to higher ground – I will cover you!” There were shrieks in the distance. A mob had heard one of their comrades and were coming en masse. It sounded like a small swarm, maybe thirty, but just one had been almost too much for Alfred to handle in his current condition.

Those few seconds were precious and dwindling fast.

The blonde did not need to be told twice, pushing the pain his legs to the back of his mind as he got moving. He ducked and weaved through the abandoned shopping center, avoiding the places where any of the swarms could have easily tracked him through the open spaces. He thanked whoever was covering him as he heard two more muffled shots; whoever it was, they had good reloading time. Alfred had barely finished getting to the upper levels of the mall before he heard a loud shout of “By the hardware supplies! Hurry!”

Alfred briefly adjusted his glasses, a bit of blood smearing over the frames, the blonde ignoring it in favor of scanning for the new destination. He spotted his savior – some large silhouette still attempting to shot down at the swarm below. A great boom was heard behind the blond and he did not dare to turn around and see what was there. He had inkling as to what might be as he heard a bellowing roar. Great. A brute had been disturbed by the chaos from below and was now itching for a bite of its own.

Alfred had seen brutes take reinforced steel doors off their hinges with a single sweep of its claws. He still had nightmares of when he had seen an army soldier be bitten in half for just being a second too slow in firing his gun. To say that the blonde had put a little ‘pep’ to his step was an understatement. He was almost running over his feet, combat boots thumping over the ground as he tried to remember how to breathe. He could hear the brute thundering behind him and he saw the silhouette make a few last shots before ducking into the hardware store.

The blonde saw the great man holster the sniper rifle to his back, grabbing something from a duffle bag on the floor. He had barely a moment to react to the voiced command of ‘Get down!’ before he threw himself forward into a sliding motion across the ruined tile. There was a brief hissing noise, air whistling past him and a great smile blew across his face as he saw the grenade speed past him. He didn’t get to watch long before he was suddenly grabbed by his front off of the ground, forced back on his feet and behind empty shelves in the hardware store.

Amidst the explosion, blue eyes took in the sight of his savior. Tall, taller than Alfred, broad shouldered with pale blonde hair. He wore a lot of thick black clothing, much like a soldier’s uniform, and a bit of Alfred’s gratitude died in his throat. The military had shot hundreds of innocent people in the past during the initial outbreak. Imprisoned far more in their homes to keep the infected inside city limits. The similarity made Alfred less thankful and more likely to ditch his savior’s company in favor for solitude.

His savior grunted, yanking down the black metal guards to close down businesses after hours. He turned around, violet eyes bright in the dark, his black boots scuffing over the dirty tile, as he took ahold of Alfred’s wrist and started pulling. “Come on,” he whispered harshly. “That grenade will not stall it for long. It will regenerate. We must keep moving!”

Begrudgingly, Alfred followed. The pair had barely gotten a few dozen feet off the next floor level of the mall before they heard the brute tear down the metal guard and start to pursue them. His savior barely acknowledged it, Alfred cursed underneath his breath as his lungs heaved for breath. But keeping up with the larger man was proving difficult and he felt himself falling behind with every step he took. His savior had glanced back, eyes ducking down to see Alfred’s wounded condition, finally swore under his breath and pulled him close. Alfred was close enough to smell the fading traces of peppermint on his breath. It tickled the shorter man’s nose but it was a pleasant scent, far more welcome than the blood and stench of rotting corpses that Alfred had gotten used to. 

There was a split second where the larger man stopped suddenly, halting in front of a ruined elevator, as if thinking. Alfred saw the brute barreling toward them and thought fast.

“Move!” He shouted, pushing them both forward into the space, climbing on top of the elevator shaft. His savior was looking at him incredulously, the brute coming too quick and leaving the other out in the open, while Alfred waiting seemingly ‘trapped’ on top of the half-exposed elevator.

“What are you doing?” The larger shouted, anger and terror clear in his features. He had a large nose, Alfred noticed as he was removing his machete off of his hip. He waited. He had to time this perfectly. The brute was coming in fast.

At the last second, his savior jumped aboard, not waiting to get left behind, the duffle bag that Alfred had never seen him grab silent in his hasty climb aboard. The brute ran into the elevator, crashing into the box and slipping inside none too gracefully, roaring, as its clawed hand tried reaching for the pair on the roof. It happened in an instant, as the gnarled limb out to swipe at anything it touched, Alfred had jumped and cut the cords holding the elevator in place.

“Hold onto somethin’!” Alfred tried to warn as the last cord snapped underneath the weight of his blade’s edge. His savior saw the move too late and then got the barest of glimpses of the zombie horde coming up the escalator towards them. They had barely avoided that swarm encounter.

The elevator shaft dropped too quickly, plummeting under the brute’s immense weight as it thrashed around inside the box. Alfred held the top of the bars lasting of the elevator’s emergency brakes, barely noticing his savior’s thick arms around him. Neither screamed but Alfred felt tears prick at his eyes and bead upwards. He hoped he had timed everything right because if he had not – this next move was going to kill every last of them in the elevator shaft.

Alfred took hold of the emergency brake and yanked, activating the neglected controls, inwardly praying that it was still functional. The gears screeched in protest of the speeding elevator, Alfred grunted as he held the lever in place to slow down the rapid descent. He just needed enough momentum to crush the brute inside the box but himself in the process. He could deal with a few more bruises but he could not come back from the dead.

“Brace yourself,” he heard himself scream over the screech of the brakes. The arms around him tightened, the brute was roaring, and suddenly there was a crash. Tense muscles made the pain worse but then he was rolling across wet solid ground, groaning but alive. He heard a thump behind himself, a weak growl from the elevator shaft that died out quickly. Blue eyes cracked open, temples throbbing and one eye having difficulty opening back up under a thick gush of blood coming from his forehead. He groaned again, trying to raise himself on his arms, body protesting the movement and sending the upper half of his body back into the wet concrete of the basement floor.

He heard a deeper groan from his right and then a hiss intake of breath. “…Do not ever do that again, comrade,” the voice said. The voice was accented, not from anywhere Alfred recognized immediately in his pain-ebbing brain.

“Agreed,” he managed in a hoarse voice, collapsing back on the ground. Darkness enveloped his vision and he barely had enough sense to realize it was a bad idea to fall unconscious in a dark basement with potential zombies around but by then, his eyes had already closed and he swiftly taken out of reality.

:::

‘It’ll be a few hours, at most,” Mathew said. He was smiling, trying to defuse the fearful tension in the room, as he adjusted the straps on his camouflage backpack. ‘Go back to sleep, I’ll be back soon – and hopefully with more food,” he added at the end. He smiled a little bigger this time at his younger twin brother. 

“I’ll see ya in the morning,” he said, going out of the apartment’s half ruined fire escape, jumping down into the bushes, giving a thumbs up to show he was okay and then taking off in his usual route to search out for rations or supplies.

“See ya in the morning,” Alfred felt like his mouth was numb, anxiety like a tightly wound spring in the center of his being.

:::

Alfred groaned, feeling an unfamiliar weight on his ankles as something else itched at his knees. He cracked open his eyes, making another weak moan as sunlight filtered in through the blinds.

Blinds?

Alfred sat up suddenly, startled, bruised abdomen protesting. He looked around. It looked like an inhabited room of an abandoned hotel room. An overstuffed chair in one corner, a nightstand with a small handheld radio on it and large armoire in the other corner of the room. A series of complicated locks and switches on the door. He was in someone else’s hideout in an unknown location and safe. He was not out in the open or half-dead and bloody in a damp basement.

Alfred looked down at himself. He was undressed, chest wrapped in gauze, a finger bandaged and another in a splint. He raised a hand, feeling another bandage just under his hairline, pulling back the various blankets and comforters to reveal his wrapped ankles and knees. Someone had treated his injuries.

Inwardly, the blonde was grateful but he also wondered why. He did not have friends in this city, he did not know anyone, he had no one. Random survivors just did not help others out of being a good Samaritan. That custom had ended after people had gotten attacked in their own homes and safe hideouts by their unknowingly infected guests. It was harsh but it was also a means of survivals.

 _“You can’t save everyone,”_ Alfred had heard one survivor say.

Alfred tried to lie back down, the bruises on his abdomen both protesting and then sighing in relief as he stopped trying to sit up. He saw his backpack next to him on the floor, beside the bed, briefly checking the contents. He still had everything, he had not been robbed. That was both good… and also strangely worrying. He began to worry in earnest as to why he was left alone in the room.

Alfred reloaded his gun just in case, keeping a knife just within reach under the covers. Safe or not, the blond was paranoid and sometimes he was thankful for it when it had been the only thing to have kept him alive all these years.

Trying to pass the time, he took out his pen and Sudoku puzzle book, ears always remaining alert for any signs of movement. But the building was either seriously abandoned or had soundproof walls. There was not a single stir in the warm afternoon. It was almost like… It was almost deceivingly like the world was back to normal, before the outbreak of the virus, everything was fine.

A few of the locks turned in the door and Alfred had the gun trained on the reinforced door in an instant. He was far sighted without his glasses and his blue eyes were practically acute in their precision from the current distance from the door. He could get a few headshots if necessary from his position, get up and use the machete in his backpack if the situation called for it.

The final lock turned and Alfred had his fingers ready to pull the trigger before he saw his savior come inside. The pale blond raised a brow at the gun trained on him, shutting the door behind him and locking it. He even pushed a heavy looking nightstand in front of the door for an added measure. As Alfred started to lower his weapon, the taller removed his backpack, sighing as he opened the zipper. “I do not wish to harm you.”

Alfred frowned, lowering the gun completely. He put it away, grunting with the slight effort, but kept the knife hidden by his side. “What’s with the locks?”

His savior looked up, holding a few peaches in a single large hand, “Hm?”

The taller man looked back at the door, turned back to Alfred and then shrugged. “I added them after I moved in so I could sleep better. I do not like sudden visitors. Catch,” he added at the end as he tossed a peach to the shorter blond.

Alfred caught the fruit easily, looking it over and risking a bite. It was ripe and juicy, bringing a smile to his freckled features. Fresh off the branch, he inwardly admired. The other had picked them. He devoured the fruit quickly, barely getting out a garbled word of thanks. The other scoffed, but when Alfred looked up, the large man was sitting in the armchair with one long leg propped up against the armrest. He was also smiling.

The blond found that he liked that smile, finding it easier to let down his guard some in the room as he laid back among the pillows and simply enjoyed the feeling of having something in his stomach after a couple of days.

:::

It had been over a week and Alfred had awoken to a sweet smell in the room. Not a bad sweet or overly sweet, but a nice sweet aroma that made his mouth water and his eyes eager to open and see what was the source of the smell. By the armchair was the heavy nightstand, a beaten up crock pot simmering quietly in the center of the room. Alfred sniffed again and then his savior - still unnamed - looked up from his map and plotting.

The large man hummed a bit to himself, frowned and then went to the nightstand. He took a few small bottles of seasonings, opened the lid and then shook the spices into the slow cooker. He made a noncommittal noise to himself, putting the seasonings away and then going to the armoire to cut an onion in his palm. Not a single tear or sniffle escaped him as he ducked the extra ingredient into the pot, tossed some green stringy vegetable for an extra measure from a Ziploc bag and then covered the pot back up.

Alfred watched in silent admiration and slight awe. Just a bit over a week into staying with the other man and he had seen the man pull together recipes from the barest ingredients. It had been revealed one night over soup that the other had befriended some farmers on the outskirts of the city. In exchange for some favors in the past and helping to build them a wall, the farmers had agreed to share produce and some selection of meat. It was never much as the farmers lived in a small community. Everyone worked hard to feed each other, but the pale blond had saved them so they did him a good blessing in return.

His savior had been in the same area for almost two years now, he was still a bit of a recluse despite his constant presence in the region. But people tended to like him and tried to tempt him from ever moving on or leaving to another city.

“What’s in the crock pot?” Alfred asked around a yawn, barely covering his mouth in time.

His savior hummed from his place in the room, “Food.”

“Nice,” Alfred replied, falling back onto the pillows, sighing. His bruises were healing up quite nicely and his ankle barely even throbbed anymore. He would be up and moving in no time. The thought and realization made his stomach hurt and his insides twist into a painful knot. He didn’t want to leave.

:::

“Hey what’s your name?” Alfred asked, adjusting the straps of his backpack on his shoulders. Everything in his body was tense. He was anxious and trying to play it off, smiling a bit at his savior and trying to defuse his own awkwardness.

“Hm? I was wondering when you would ask,” the other man replied. Then he laughed, a warm and hearty sound that made Alfred grin and laugh back. Natural.

“My name is Ivan. Ivan Bragnisky,” the taller man replied. He had crinkles at the corners of his eyes and when he smiled, dimples lit up in his cheeks. It was a wonderful beautiful sight and it made a slight warmth appear in the shorter man’s own face. He felt almost embarrassed to look at such an authentic smile, he had not seen such genuine happiness on anyone’s face in years.

Alfred was on the verge of trying to duck his eyes, barely getting out, “T-that’s great, nice to meet ya, big fella. I’m Alfred – Alfred F. Jones, if we’re sharing whole names. I mean, only if you’re okay with that, uh, Ivan. Yeah, so like, thanks for patchin’ me up and shit-”

“Nice to meet you, Alfred F. Jones,” Ivan cut him off, standing up to his full height over Alfred. The shorter male made an audible gulp, blood throbbing in his eardrums and he barely managed not to seem like a complete tool.

“Nice to meet you too,” Alfred finally got out and when Ivan smiled back at him again, all glittering snowflakes and pale happy snowmen, the shorter man completely forgot he had just repeated himself.

:::

They never split up.

Somehow even though Alfred had planned to leave once he got better, had collected his things and everything, he never left Ivan’s rooms in the abandoned hotel. He would always come back to Ivan. By some chance and lucky encounter, they always came back together. Ivan said they were like music notes within the same key. Alfred didn’t get the metaphor but he agreed anyways.

One night, over some roasted fish that Alfred had caught out of a river, thankfully non-mutated, they were talking. They were en route to going back to the room, but had stopped to eat, after Alfred had complained for some umpteenth time. Ivan never got upset with him though, he never got at Alfred – he just smiled. Sometimes, it was sarcastic. But sarcastic or not, it made everything in Alfred’s do flip flops every time the taller man glanced in his direction.

“What did you do before the outbreak?” Alfred asked, picking a piece of food from his teeth. The other male had long gotten used to Alfred’s table manners, eating his own piece of fish quietly and almost too neatly, almost as if he was being polite to his dinner.

“Depends,” Ivan replied, using a piece of cloth that he had fashioned into a makeshift handkerchief. “I did study music for many years, I was a professor.”

Alfred started, “Huh.”

The other shrugged, “But I also did work in the military before coming to America, that is how I know how to shoot this.”

Not even a bare second later, Ivan had his rifle out and pointed at Alfred. The younger blonde barely had a moment to even think before he felt the air whizz by his cheek and a resounding groan in the distance. Ivan scoffed, “We should get moving. They are trying to be sneaky, little heathens.”

The younger was still in semi-shock, “When did you – how did-?”  
He could barely get a word out of his mouth without tumbling over it.

Ivan was already standing up, putting the rifle back in the makeshift holster over his back and offering a hand to Alfred to help him up, “Come. It does well to have a second pair of eyes, yes?”

He smiled again and Alfred put aside his prior goosebumps to just nod dumbly.

:::

Ivan had just laid down in the bed one night, Alfred reloading and cleaning his revolvers when he suddenly blurted, “Uh, I guess I should say some stuff about me. I was in college once, did about a year’s worth or so, yeah. I did history – American history and some language minor. I think French? Yeah well. I, uh, dropped out.”

Saying the last part made his throat clench, old memories making a bad taste start to claw up the back of his throat. “College just wasn’t for me, y’know? I thought I was doing the right thing, it seemed like I was doing the right thing, it felt like the right thing at first and then just everything was too much and I was stressed out and I-”

His eyes were stinging and then a calloused thumb brushed the wetness out of the corners of his eyes before he had even realized he was crying. He looked up from his revolver, he had been putting the same round into the gun wrong. Wrong. He was always getting something wrong. His studies. His sexuality. His relationships. His life, in general-

“Alfred, comrade, you have done nothing wrong,” Ivan was kneeling in front of him. Violet eyes, warm and gentle, caring and open, far too sympathetic. “University is not for everyone. You were not wrong, you did what was right for you and no one else.”

Looking at Ivan hurt, seeing someone care that much for him hurt, everything hurt and he just ducked his head, crying silently and felt himself hiccup through every other intake of breath. Ivan was rubbing small circles in his back like he was a child in need of comfort and Alfred was angry that it soothed him.

Alfred was angry that he had brought it up at all.

:::

It took a bit of time before Ivan felt comfortable in taking the younger man with him on his errands for the farmers. He was not suspicious of Alfred harming the farmers or failing to follow orders, more so, the older man was afraid of losing the blond in an accident. The farmers had a problem with wolves. A breed of animal that had mutated under the virus and continued to live and breed with regular wolves to become even more of a threat to the surrounding area.

Ivan was an excellent hunter, past military training making him near silent even as he walked over the foliage of the recent autumn leaves. Alfred tried to mimic the other but was met with less success. Instead, he kept his eyes and ears open, watching out for anything that could have been a wolf or even a deer.

Deer could have been a threat in his eyes; the animals were big, clumsy and prone to prancing into traffic from what he remembered before the outbreak. Alfred was not fond of them.

The pair found one wolf during their hunt, thankfully, it was not mutated. But it did have past scars showing that it had fought against something else recently. Ivan had done the talking for most of their visit, Alfred waiting patiently by the edge of the property as per the other’s request to stay out of earshot. On the trek home, the younger male had tried to make small talk. Well, not particularly small talk, rather he had turned small talk into a game of twenty questions. Twenty questions turned into thirty, thirty into fifty before either of them had even realized it.

Alfred had tried to give out some basic facts about himself. He could recite all of the United States presidents’ names in order, forwards and backwards; he knew at least five facts about each and every one of them. This was including whether or not the former presidents had a vice president or whether the former presidents had been forced to replace their vice presidents at any point during into their terms in office. Lincoln and FDR had been his favorites, not counting the founding fathers, he had added at the end. He also liked pineapple slices on his pizza, walking more than one dog at once, hated having an odd number of anything and once lost a shoe during recess in fifth grade.

Ivan had found out a lot about the other and he tried to be just as open about himself. He had been originally born in Russia, had been taught piano as a child and had gotten married young. The marriage had been expected of him but it had left him unhappy so he divorced after a year and immigrated to the United States thereafter. As for his wife, he had never contacted her after getting to America and as far as he knew, he had no clue or idea if she was alive, infected or dead. He had no ill feelings towards her but he had no good memories of her either, she was but a fuzzy memory to him now.

“Huh,” Alfred had said after the mini confession. He frowned to himself, “Alright, how to top all of that, uh… well – oh! I know. Before the outbreak, I had come out to my family as bisexual. That… had been interesting, I think.”

Interesting was not how he would have described his feelings at being kicked out of his home, his twin brother being the only person to support and make him feel validated afterwards. Interesting was also not he would have described how painful that liberation had been. But Alfred reasoned to himself that Ivan did not deserve to have to hear his sob story. It was sad, yes, but it was not unique.

Alfred looked up at Ivan, a twig cracking underneath one of their boots and a squirrel darting off at the sound from a distance. The taller had hummed to himself, “Hm.”

“Hm?” Alfred mimicked, he was not meaning to annoy the other, but was genuinely curious as to what the other may have been thinking. 

“I… I have – I had never thought about it,” Ivan said aloud at last. “This sexuality thing? Up until this moment, at least. It had never seemed important to me,” he shrugged, frowning to himself. “It had never… it had never seemed important. I do not – have not? – found anyone attractive, or at least. I do not think I have ever been attracted to anyone.”

The taller man paused in his voiced thoughts but kept on walking. He was still frowning to himself, thinking about seemingly everything in his life up to that point. His frown deepened and whatever he had thought about was not pleasant. Alfred did not like the sight of a frown on the other, already wanting to change the subject to make it go away.

Alfred tried to change the direction of their conversation, adding energy into his voice to mask his guilt for upsetting the other. “Well, no pressure, big fella. There’s no rush to figure it all out, it took me a while to finally come out. You’re like what?” He made a vague gesture at Ivan, “In your thirties? You got plenty of time-”

“Forty-seven,” Ivan cut in, smiling.

Alfred started, eyes widening in surprise, he paused in the middle of the clearing. “Pardon?”

Ivan paused briefly, looking back at the other before he smiled again, “I am forty-seven years of age, but thank you.”

Ivan turned back around, going right back into walking as if nothing had just happened, “Come now. We have only a few hours of daylight left, I want to get off the streets before sundown.”

Alfred was blushing, still frozen in place.  
He was barely into his twenties.

:::

Ivan was sleeping, broad chest rising and falling in even breaths. He was deep into his sleep, only a specific noise would wake him up. Alfred had learned that after living with him thus far. When the coast was clear for a moment longer, the blond took off his gloves.

Old scars, old impressions of half crescent moon shapes over his hand, there were overlapping in some scars while one of his fingers lacked a nail. Looking at the scars made the blond pause, holding his breath and listening to Ivan just breath before he briefly touched a finger to one of the scars. Tracing it. Nothing happened. No faint tingles, no shivers or strange shudders that went up his spine like in the old stories he had heard or read about.

But Alfred did remember the face of his brother. Bright eyed one day, dark the next and then savage the last day. He had been bitten. He had also bitten Alfred. But unlike his twin brother, he had never been infected. He had never turned into a zombie. He had never gotten the telltale fever, swelling or any of the symptoms.

He had been waiting on a symptom appearance for some odd three years now.

:::

Alfred had finally been introduced to the lead farmer and unofficial leader of the little farming community. The afternoon had gone well enough, spent cutting down some trees and brushing aside underbrush for the farmers to use as firewood for the upcoming winter in exchange for eggs and a whole chicken. The old man had barely been gone for much longer than five minutes when Alfred had begun another round of questions.

“Hey Ivan,” Alfred had begun, picking a piece of stray pine straw off his boot laces. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Two sisters,” Ivan responded, his eyes scanned the horizon. The sun would not set for a while but he was anxious. Winters took valuable time away from his mind and left him antsy to get back to their room. It was safer there than anywhere in the open, especially leaving the clearing of the farm and trying to get back to the city.

Alfred kicked a rock a few feet away from him, he had put his hands in his pockets to hide their anxious shake but he also wanted to make a vague gesture. “Are they… y’know?”

“Yes, they are both alive,” the taller replied, looking down at the other. “But not here,” he said, looking back at the horizon as they continued to wait on the farer to bring back the goods for their services. “They stay in Siberia. It is still safe there… You?”

Alfred beamed, looking up at Ivan although the other did not meet his gaze at first, “Oh yeah! I’m a twin! Fraternal but yeah, definitely – now you can say that met a pair of twins, cross that off of your bucket list, big fella.”

Ivan chuckled lowly to himself, “I see who is the more energetic of the two.”

It was meant as a joke, but it made something in the young man’s insides twist horribly. Alfred faked a quick smile, ducking his head before the other could notice the hot moisture behind his glasses. It was allergies, he told himself.

“Yup,” Alfred started to say, voice surprisingly steady. “Mattie was pretty quiet a lot. But he,” he stammered through his own lie. “But he never seemed to mind.”

Ivan was not deterred, “Where is he – this Mattie, you said?”

Alfred squirmed under his gaze, stuttering although he had no idea why. “His name is Mathew, but yeah I call’im Mattie. Uh…”

He never got a chance to finish the rest of his answer as the farmer called them back.  
Alfred was silently grateful.

:::

Alfred laid in the bed, lying down and facing the broad square of muscle that was Ivan’s chest. His glasses were off but he could still manage a few bits and pieces of sight with the moonlight streaming in through the window. The day had been long and the rest was well earned for the taller man beside him. Ivan had practically fallen asleep as soon as they had gotten back to their shared room. Home. It was their home. Light snores filling the shared space as soon as his boots were off and his face had met the mattress.

Whereas Ivan was wearing a shirt to bed because had been too tired to take it off, Alfred always wore a dark shirt to bed. He never went without some sort of cover for his torso. Never. There were scars there. Scars that he had no intention of risking Ivan ever knowing about, let alone seeing for himself. The scars were obvious on his tanned skin, the cause of said aforementioned scars even more obvious. Vicious bite and claw marks.

An awful fight that Alfred would never forget.

The twisted face of his twin brother, usually warm and forgiving dark blue eyes now a hazy color and savage. Blackened bite marks crawling over all over his grey arms, mottled scars from bad falls and sloppy slides across asphalt during hasty retreats. Blond hair tangled and dirty, dingy in color, and matted with dirt and blood and some other third thing that Alfred had not cared to take a closer look at.

Mathew was going to break through the bathroom door any minute and Alfred was not ready. He was outright sobbing, pulling at his own hair and screaming horrible things to himself over the roars of his brother. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he mocked himself. This was all of his fault. He had let his brother go out on his own, no backup, no second set of eyes, he had turned his back on his own twin brother and now-

Mathew broke through the door, arm twisting and turning, finding the door knob and breaking it. Alfred called the other’s name, begged him to stop this, but the other blond was beyond listening. His humanity had died some hours prior to Alfred finding him behind a dumpster in a pool of his own vomit and blood. The boy’s humanity had probably died when he had been bitten the first time, more of his own hope of survival dropping fast with every other bite – until all twenty-three bites were accounted for and leaking his life onto the asphalt.

It had been painful, sickening, and awful – but Alfred had counted every bite.

Alfred had made sure to let his brother get the exact number on him. It would only be fair. He had hoped back then that the bites would have killed him. Twenty-three bites had to have been enough to kill him. But it wasn’t. He never died that night. Had somehow survived the bites and savage fighting for his own life, then somehow – somehow, he had dragged himself to the revolver underneath the couch.

Alfred had heaved for his own breath, vision swimming as Mathew had screeched at him.  
He had not even flinched once as he had been turning off the safety but Alfred remembered oh so clearly the gall he had that night to apologize to his twin brother in failing to ‘save’ him.

He would not fail to save anyone else… or at the very least, if he could not save them, he would join them soon enough.

:::

Nighttime.

Ivan was a beacon of hope for Alfred. Warm smile. Bright knowing eyes. Small, knowledgeable smiles. And he had so much potential, so much creativity and life in him; more than many of the people that Alfred had met before the outbreak.

It was one night, near the start of winter, when the cold was starting to set in and they had been scavenging late into the night. In an old, abandoned upper class neighborhood, they had picked a lock to get out of the cold and away from potential zombies. Inside the foyer had been a baby grand piano and Alfred had known almost immediately from Ivan’s short intake of breath that the sight was a familiar one.

Ivan had looked so forlornly at the musical instrument, brushing his fingers over the cool ivory keys until Alfred teased him to give it a shot. Ivan tried to get out of it, said that the noise would attract attention but Alfred persisted.

In the end, Ivan agreed.

Alfred had forgotten about the outside world, forgotten about the collapse of society and the decline of humanity in those few all too short minutes of peace and sweet notes.

Ivan still played beautifully.

:::

It was springtime and the rain showers had been awfully heavy that year. A lot of the streets were flooded with excess water, the drainage sewers barely able to suck down everything if they even still worked after so much time had passed since their last maintenance visit.

It was during that wet spring where Alfred had caught a little flitting duckling in the palm of his hands. He had felt a gaze at his back and had turned around, the little duckling in his grasp quacking to get back his affections.

Ivan was smiling at him, leaning against a street lamp, not even bothered or remotely upset that this was some third or so time that Alfred had stopped to play with some odd creature wading through the water. 

Ivan’s smile was positively contagious.

Alfred had smiled back.

:::

They had found old alcohol bottles. Red wine, some old spirits from a date not too shabby, in Alfred’s opinion. He was the one to suggest that they bring it home with them. It had not seemed like a terribly bad idea, so there did not seem to be any consequences unless either of them drank too much and left the security of their room.

But Alfred had never been much of a drinker and Ivan said he couldn’t remember. They lost track of time and how many times they passed around the bottle. They drank so much that Alfred couldn’t stop talking and Ivan was pink in the face, giggling at everything that Alfred said.

Alfred loved his laughter as much as his smile.

Their first kiss was drunk but it was innocent.

:::

The morning after, they awoke in their clothes and did not talk about the night prior. There did not feel a need to talk about it. Alfred had thought about bringing it up whilst eating a piece of bread, looking up and catching Ivan’s eyes on him. Ivan smiled and Alfred grinned back.

Words would have complicated things anyways.

:::

Things remained like that for a long time, almost a year in fact. Little stolen kisses in the dark of night, underneath stars because Alfred was a hopeless romantic and Ivan loved to indulge the younger male. They talked late into the night, until the younger fell asleep mid-sentence and Ivan chuckled to himself, falling asleep soon after. They woke up together, usually tangled amidst each other’s limbs, always clothed, never naked. Both too afraid to take things that far and too awkward to bring it up in conversation.

The pair ate together, worked together and covered more ground in southern Georgia together than either had ever thought of going about on their own. They were practically inseparable, if one was seen, the other was never too far behind. They covered each other’s backs in combat, boosted each other’s defenses and doubled attacks.

Ivan was an excellent sniper from a distance but he had a blind spot within three feet of his right side. Alfred was perfect in that position, his glasses giving him the edge he needed. He finally got the chance to use the brass knuckles he had found some long time ago in Alabama, fighting back and loving the rush of adrenaline that came with it.

Ivan kept him grounded and Alfred helped Ivan feel alive.

:::

Then one afternoon, reality took a turn. Alfred had gotten carried away and gone too far from Ivan’s line of sight. He could hear the other calling him and then he had been surrounded by tall buildings and a horde about the size of a football team. He heard the other making haste to get to a higher position, Ivan needed an angle to shoot best.

The horde was finally lightening up and then Alfred had heard it. A screech and then he had turned too late and he saw the zombie directly in Ivan’s blind spot. He had jumped up, forgetting the horde some distance behind him, waving his arms in a panic. The taller was on a balcony. There were cars beneath him. He might not fall right. Could have hit the fire hydrant. Alfred wanted to sob.

Ivan saw the motions too late, still trying to kill off as many zombies as his rifle would let him take out. Alfred felt Ivan’s pained cry strike him dead into his soul. The older male twisted, dropped his rifle, the gun falling down to the ground and was struggling to get the offending creature off of his neck. His neck. A critical wound if Alfred had ever seen one.

The younger male suddenly remembered his revolver in his hands, shot once – no, twice – and saw Ivan stumble. His blind spot caught him off guard again, the taller backing right into the space between ruined bars of metal fencing. He fell over a dozen feet, the zombie still snapping at his face, hit a car roof, set off an alarm, bounced and rolled on the ground. The zombie hit the concrete face first, dead black blood making a mess on the asphalt.

Alfred rushed for the wounded blond, fearing the worst even as he tried to help the other up. He almost stumbled under Ivan’s weight. Blood covered too much of Ivan’s face to fully discern his expression and he was speaking incomprehensible syllables.

Alfred high-tailed them out of there, he had no idea of how many times he had to turn around, getting them lost and finding the right street back to their secluded room in the abandoned hotel after several times. If they had been followed, the younger blond was sure that he had lost them.

Getting Ivan up the stairs had been difficult, the taller almost always stumbling over his own large feet, slipping in the blood and mess he trailed behind them even as Alfred tried to urge him back onto the staircase. Alfred had lowered him down in front of the door, grabbing the keys from Ivan’s pants pocket and unlocking every lock to drag the older man inside, kick the door shut. He almost forgot to lock it back, remembering at the last second and then found himself about to burst into tears as he got a good look at Ivan.

The younger man tried to focus on cleaning Ivan up before he came to conclusions. But the conclusions reared their ugly heads before the blond was ready to deal with them. Ivan had a head wound, not too bad, but he kept bleeding no matter how many times Alfred wrapped it. He put cold socks on the man’s forehead, trying to keep the swelling down, bruises were starting to form underneath the taller man’s pale skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead and Ivan was struggling to breathe.

The bite: it had been deep. Deep enough for the virus to get straight to his bloodstream and circulate around his body quickly. Quicker than Alfred could have ever believed. The bite wound had turned black within a few hours and Alfred had been sobbing the entire time. He prayed to every heavenly being and deity that he knew the name of and even some he left unnamed but begged to help him anyways.

Ivan was all he had.  
He couldn’t lose him.

:::

“Ivan… I know you’re fightin’ so hard right now, this won’t be the last time ya hear me alright? You just keep on fightin’ and you’ll get better before ya even know it! Just... I want ya to know I love ya. I love ya so much and you mean everythin’ to me, so don’t ya quit fightin’ on me, ya hear? You and me, big fella, straight fightin’ and survivin’ to the end. You promised me, remember? Just keep fightin’ for me, big fella. I love ya.”

:::

Alfred took a long gulp of the wine bottle, tossing the object aside as he heard the pounding on the bathroom for the odd time. Ivan… had woken up. Roaring and screeching. The door was cracking under his blows, Ivan had always been a big man, more than a walking tank of muscle. He was always so gentle before, Alfred thought, spinning the barrel of his revolver.

He had been waiting for this.  
He turned off the safety.

Ivan’s arm broke through the wood, grey fingers bloodied stumps of the beautiful pianist fingers that had run up Alfred’s sides every night. Bloodshot eyes searched frantically through the hole, another roar being heard as the door cracked under another harsh blow. It wouldn’t hold up much longer, the heavy nightstand in front of the locked door handle would only buy so much more time.

Alfred’s head lolled to one side, clicking the barrel back into place.  
He wasn’t ready but he did not have a choice anymore, now did he?

When Ivan finally broke down most of the door, knocking one of the hinges off of the frame and came charging for the only other life in the room.

Alfred had already taken aim, pointing the barrel-  
-right as Ivan pounced-

“You gave it your all, big fella, I love ya so much-”

-the bullet went through Alfred’s chin and right out of his skull, body immediately going limp in the overstuffed armchair as the zombified remnants of Ivan tore chunks both out of him and then tearing his newfound savage fangs into the blonde’s body.

Alfred would always give himself back to Ivan.  
They would never go without one another.

Death and eternal solitude be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy [belated] birthday, Lola! I love you so much!


End file.
